


Serenade

by sensitivebore



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitivebore/pseuds/sensitivebore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson and Hughes, and a summer song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serenade

Carson raises his arm, wipes the sweat from his brow. It's a blisteringly hot day, unusual for this part of the country, but there it is. The sun is beating down without relent and he's in his shirt sleeves; all of the men are, the ladies are in their lightest dresses. He had gotten dispensation from his Lordship to let the uniform rules go lax for today, it's simply too hot to be wrapped in layer after layer of linen and cotton.

He deadheads another flower with a neat snip of the secateurs, watches it fall. The gardener isn't due for another day and he can't stand the thought of being in the house right now; at least he can get the occasional breeze out here, but his office is stuffy, gives him a headache, makes it hard to breathe. He clips another, carefully separates two stems that are trying to wrap together. Figures he might as well make himself useful out here.

A movement catches his eye and he looks up, smiles ruefully. He's under the window of a bedroom now and he can see Elsie tiredly directing the maids to take down the draperies. She's opening up all of the rooms today, letting them properly air. Had to, else the entire house would reek of dead air and sweat, hot summer sweat that seemed to cling to everything. He watches her struggle with the latch for a moment and then push the heavy windows out as far as they will go. Raises his hand in greeting.

She slumps there on the windowsill and regards him with amusement. "How are you, Mr. Carson?"

He grimaces, points toward the sky. "Hot, Mrs. Hughes. Extremely hot. I'm sure you are, as well."

Elsie nods glumly, begins wiping at the woodwork with a cloth, examining it for cracks or chips or broken veneer. "Hot and tired and all I want is a cold bath and a nap, if I'm honest."

He swallows, looks away into the distance. Tries not to imagine her nude body sinking into a tub of cold water, gasping at the chill, her —

"If we could only get a good rain, that would put us to rights. If I ever miss anything about home, it's that. These long hot days would always get a good hard rain in the late afternoon and break it all up." She sounds a little wistful and he looks up again, gives her a small smile. Hot and tired she may be, but she's very pretty today, he thinks. Flushed and a little damp with perspiration — they are all fairly soaked with it — and when she turns in the window, the bright sunlight hits her and his temperature soars another few degrees. She is caught in silhouette and he can see clearly that she has gone — as all of the ladies probably have — without a corset today, is wearing nothing probably but a flimsy shift beneath her dress.

Carson clears his throat, goes back to his task. The flowers really are in wretched shape, the heatwave has been all but catastrophic for the lovely manicured gardens, but that couldn't be helped. He laughs as she calls down to him again with an agonized groan.

"Hot — hot — hot —  _hot_."

Glancing up, he's amused to see her leaning on her elbows in the window, her face cupped in her hands. She looks, he decides, like a queen waiting for her lover to come and climb the trellis, to bear her away on a steed to somewhere nicer.

Well. She is not a queen and he is not her lover and there is no trellis and no steed but perhaps he can make her smile. Perhaps. He begins to hum in time with the snipping of the secateurs.

"Every little summer, every little winter —"

Elsie is looking down at him, laughs.

"Don't we got fun —"

She is smiling, yes, already, and he is inordinately pleased.

"Twins and cares, dear, come in pairs, dear —"

Her fingers lace together under her chin and she leans forward to listen, lolls there, which is unusual for her, unusual for her not to be moving. He likes this, likes that she is still for a moment, in the shimmering, oppressive heat, that she isn't taxing herself, pushing as always. Likes that she has stopped to listen.

"Still we have fun — When I first saw you —"

He hadn't really thought about the lyrics to the song. Can't even remember where he heard it. Unconsciously, his voice deepens, becomes tender, loving.

"When I first saw you — I had but one thought —"

Surprisingly enough, he stops clipping just in time, because there is a little yellow tea rose proudly living beneath all of the scorched and dried petals. He leans in, pulls it, snaps the stem.

"And then you chased me — oh, until you were caught — ain't we got fun —"

Carson looks up at her and she's smiling down at him, at his foolishness, and he feels the heat lift a little. Feels a renewed appreciation for the heat that allows him to go without all of that stiff starch, that allows her soft curves to move freely beneath her frock.

He steps through the dead flowers until he's directly under the window and wonders if he can make the throw. He's a good cricket pitch, and she's only ten or twelve feet above him. He calls up to her.

"Catch."

She stretches her hands out and he flings the little flower directly up at her cupped palms and she catches it, against all odds — she's terrible at catching things, he can't toss her a tea towel without her missing it four times out of four — and curls her fingers around it gently.

"You're being surprisingly silly, you know." She grins. He shrugs, tips her a little wave, and goes back to his work.

She raises the little battered — battered, but fragrant and alive — rose to her lips, smiles into the petals.

Ain't we got fun.


End file.
